Here I blog about writing, editing, reading, books, submissions, freelancing, getting published (and rejected), journalism, revisions, life after the MFA, teaching writing, and living the writer's life. Welcome. BUT -- if you are a writer: Write first, read blogs second.

Friday, November 30, 2012

Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Links for Writers, November 30, 2012 Edition

> You know the year is just about over when the "100" lists begin to appear. The Sunday New York Times Book Review editors have compiled "100 Notable Books of 2012."> Flavorwire has chosen "New York's Most Important 100 Living Writers," and you'll have to click through 100 times to get to number one (someone I adore). I noticed immediately that at least half a dozen on the list live in New Jersey (we Jersey literary folk know this stuff!) -- and to be fair, the article intro does say, "we’ve chosen writers and journalists in the NYC area." Still, why do they have to be listed as "New York writers"?> Scholars & Rogues offers a list of online resources for creative writers -- literary journal lists and databases, submission and tracking tools -- including a few I had not known about.> In case you were busy this week, you know, writing...and missed the controversy that immediately erupted over Simon & Shuster entering the self-publishing market (via Archway Publishing), Porter Anderson has carefully summarized the issues. > What do you do while your agent sends your completed book manuscript around to publishers? First, you try not to think about it, which is not so easy, according to Natalia Sylvester; and then, when the rejections creep in, you learn something.> Think you're having a rotten writing/submitting/rejection kind of day? Check out the Face Lift/Guess the Plot posts, like this one, over at Evil Editor, where we're given a list of possible (usually preposterous) plots and then the real synopsis for one of them, which Evil Editor then slashes -- while offering solid advice.> Finally, of all the items on a soon-to-be-published author's to-do list, tchotchkes. Karen Pullen mulls it over (and could use some ideas!).Have a great weekend.

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My Writing Life

I am primarily a nonfiction writer -- literary and personal essays, journalism, memoir, humor, reviews, and more. My work appears in print and online media, literary journals, and essay collections. I write and publish a bit of poetry, too, and am experimenting with short stories.

I am part of the founding faculty and teach creative nonfiction in the Bay Path University (Massachusetts) online MFA program. I also teach closer to home at Montclair State University (NJ), with The Writers Circle, and previously taught at Rutgers University. I teach and coach privately online and in person, too.

I also work as a freelance writer, literary journal editor, independent manuscript editor, writing coach, editorial consultant, ghostwriter. In other words -- hire me! In former lives, I was an equestrian journalist, a public relations specialist, an editor for a hyperlocal news site, and a real estate spy (don't ask).

I have a BS in journalism (Syracuse), and an MFA in creative nonfiction (Stonecoast/University of Southern Maine). Like every other writer I know, I am at work on too many projects all at once. That's what I love about the writing and freelance life.

My husband once read this section and remarked that I don't mention anything about my family, so: I am the mother of two sons -- a college student and a high schooler. I have been married for 27 years to the boy I first fell for at age 12. Too bad he didn't fall for me for another 13 years. There honey, happy now?